


Lost a foe (found a friend)

by panickyintheuk



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Background Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers, Doppelganger, LMD fic, M/M, Robot Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panickyintheuk/pseuds/panickyintheuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is on his own and at a loss, so working on Nick Fury's LMD project is the perfect distraction - but Tony has a history of getting too attached to his tech. And sometimes his tech gets attached back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost a foe (found a friend)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for [Robot Big Bang](robotbigbang.livejournal.com) \- it's the longest thing I've ever managed to complete, and I'm so happy I had the incentive to get my arse in gear and do this thing. I really hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Many thanks to [unavoidedcrisis](http://unavoidedcrisis.livejournal.com/), to my betas/first readers [lamanguejoyeuse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lamanguejoyeuse) and [katemonkey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katemonkey), and to my artist [waterofthemoon](http://waterofthemoon.livejournal.com/), whose lovely artwork can be found [here](http://waterofthemoon.livejournal.com/576689.html).
> 
> The title, like the epigraph, is from Nick Cave's "Lie Down Here (& Be My Girl)".

One day I'll buy a factory  
And assemble you on a production line  
\- Nick Cave, _Lie Down Here ( & Be My Girl)_

 #

“We’re not doing any of that ‘presenting Nick Fury’s 1940s experience’ hoopla this time,” said Tony firmly. “You tried that, total disaster, and I’m running this show now.”

 “The plan itself wasn’t flawed. We could just put a different baseball game on the radio.”

“Are you missing the part of your brain that learns from mistakes?” said Tony, and then immediately threw his hands up in submission when Fury gave him a look that might very well actually kill him. “Just – give my way the old college try, okay? It doesn’t work, we can return to factory settings, no harm done, bing bang boom.”

Total lie, but Fury either didn’t know that or  wasn’t invested enough to waste any more time arguing. Tony counted it as a win.

#

The LMD was a work of _art_. Tony hadn’t been involved in designing or making the body – even if it had been synthetic, which it wasn’t, his interest had never been in pale imitations of the human form. As far as he was concerned, humanity wasn’t something to _aspire_ to. That part of the job had been left up to the SHIELD geneticists. Tony, meanwhile, had been in charge of designing the program that would give the prototype LMD all the traits and memories of a freshly-thawed Steve Rogers.

After he’d collected and compiled the data (who was he kidding? He’d already had an entire hard drive’s worth of data on Cap, a lot of which he’d procured by hacking into SHIELD databases, but that didn’t sound so good) and he’d incorporated it into the AI program – a modified version of what he’d used to create JARVIS – the geneticists had done some weird stuff that turned it into a virus that could be injected into the growing brain of the clone. Bruce would be able to explain it all better, but Bruce was gone, wasn’t he?

So Tony hadn’t actually seen it in the flesh yet (pun intended but immediately regretted), and boy, was it something. Okay, so it looked like Rogers, that was the whole idea, and maybe that should have been a sticking point, but nobody could deny that Rogers had a fine body. And this thing was lying there, so vulnerable in the bare quarters they’d put it in – not too 40s, but not too anything else either – that he almost felt a pang of sympathy for it.

He’d joked around that he might make some improvements to Rogers’ personality while he could, but from a scientific standpoint his interest was really in replicating it as exactly as possible, to the point that he’d actually argued with Fury about the level of sophistication of his AI program. And really, if he were being strict about it, maybe he should have insisted that it wake up in exactly the same way as Rogers had, but there were way too many variables to account for, and anyway, he wanted to give this thing a test drive as soon as possible. Hence sitting alone in a room with it as it woke up for the first time.

Of course, Hill and assorted others were listening in, in case the thing went berserk or had a fit or Tony did something outrageous, but he was confident of his chances of getting some alone time once they were reassured that the both of them weren’t going to do any harm.

The ‘booting up’ process, or whatever you wanted to call it, was pretty damn similar to waking out of a coma anyway, so this was going to be a big déjà vu moment for a lot of the agents, but Tony hadn’t had seats to that show the first time around.

He waited patiently – no, really – for it to blink awake, and when it did he was going to allow it a minute or two to get its bearings, but it apparently didn’t need them. Its eyes focused on him impressively quickly.

“Hello, Captain Rogers,” he said soothingly. “How are you feeling?”

“Where am I?” it asked, its voice rough from disuse.

“You’re in Manhattan,” he said.

“Who are you?”

“Me personally, or the organization whose custody you’re in?”

It shook its head in frustration, but it didn’t seem to be directed at Tony so much as at its own disorientation. “Both.”

“The organization is SHIELD. It’s a quasi-military organization, the existence of which is classified. The United States military,” he added quickly, when it started to look alarmed. “And my name is Tony Stark. I’m a relative of Howard’s. I’m technically a consultant,” he said, as neutrally as possible, but if Fury or Natasha were listening he hoped they picked up on the edge to his voice.

“Where’s Howard?”

“That… Captain Rogers, that takes some explaining. I’ve got some news that’s going to come as a shock.”

“Something happened to Howard?”

Tony hesitated. “Yes. But that’s not the news. It’s probably best that I tell you as quickly as possible, but if you need some time, maybe some water, before I…”

“Just go ahead,” it said, and maybe it seemed mildly annoyed. Jesus, Tony probably would be, in its position, but it wasn’t like Tony had a lot of practice breaking bad news. He tended to receive it rather than give it.

“When you crashed your plane, something odd happened to your body. Most people would have frozen to death, but instead you entered a kind of stasis, a, uh-”

“I know what ‘stasis’ means.”

“Sorry. Do you know what Sea Monkeys are?”

He could just picture Fury’s face, and it would very eloquently express _what the fuck, Stark?_ Yeah, no, that would be fair.

“Sea Monkeys? Uh, aquatic primates?”

“Yeah, no, I’ll tell you later, not the point. Wow, get it together, Stark. You entered stasis, like hibernation, and your body didn’t age, but time passed. A lot of time passed.”

“How much time?” said the LMD breathlessly.

“Seventy years. Just shy of.” He winced. “I’m… I’m Howard’s son. He died over twenty years ago.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” croaked the LMD, rubbing at its eyes with the heels of its hands. They were dry, but a little red.

“That’s not… Jesus. That’s not necessary. I, uh. Are you okay?”

“Peggy Carter?”

“She’s alive, but she lives in Israel now, uh…” Shit shit shit, how would this work logistically, if he wanted to talk to her? She’d already talked to Rogers. She was compos mentis enough, as far as Tony was aware, to keep it straight in her head, but from a security standpoint… Christ, he should have just told him she was dead, he should have thought about this beforehand, he was the worst genius ever.

“Israel?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s a… real place now. There was a whole big thing. It was established after the war.”

“We, uh, we won the war, right?”

Tony laughed, relieved that he could actually deliver some good news, finally. The LMD was looking kind of shell-shocked (totally inappropriate choice of words, thank god he hadn’t said that out loud), but it wasn’t, like, breaking down the door and running away. It was sitting up, but that was it. Maybe Tony hadn’t fucked this up _too_ badly.

“Yeah, we won. 1945.”

The LMD nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to forgive me--“

“--Jesus, don’t call me ‘sir’, call me Tony.”

“I was going to say, you’ll have to forgive me, Tony, this is a lot to take in. And please call me Steve.”

“Uh, forgiven. Okay, Steve, I can do that.” Fucking weird was what that was. He didn’t even call Cap ‘Steve’. But fine, whatever, he was the first person Steve had seen in this Brave New World and he hadn’t actually pissed him off too badly yet.

“So let’s recap – uh, let’s… let’s go over the facts, okay? So the year is 2012, we won the war, I’m Howard’s son, you’re safe. Uh. Anything else you want to ask about?”

“I don’t really know where to start,” said Steve.

“That’s fair. There’ll be people who can bring you up to speed better than I can. And there’ll be doctors. I hope that’s okay.”

“Sure, I’ve had my fair share of poking and prodding in my time,” Steve said gamely, obviously putting on a brave face, because he had to be freaking out, but he… he seemed okay, comparatively.

“Head doctors.”

“Ah. Well, that’s fine too,” he said, a little less gamely.

“Common practice these days,” said Tony. “You can’t watch a Halloween special anymore without mandatory counseling. Am I speaking English right now, as you understand it?”

“More or less,” said Steve distractedly. He was frowning at  the light coming through Tony’s t-shirt.

“What’s that?” he said.

“That’s my arc reactor,” said Tony.

“Does everyone have one of those now?”

Tony tried, and failed, to suppress a smile. “No, just me. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you some time.”

#

SHIELD declared Tony’s college try a modest success, although apparently Hill had decided that offering Tony verbal Imodium whenever she saw him was the funniest thing since the invention of the knock-knock joke. Somebody also sent him an Ocean Zoo in the mail, and Tony would put money on it being her, unless Clint had somehow found out. Tony took comfort in the fact that his method had resulted in _significantly_ less of a clusterfuck than Fury’s method.  Also, in a shocking plot twist, Steve seemed to have taken an actual liking to him, which was incredibly confusing but did kind of smooth the way for unfettered access to his latest project.

He dropped in on Steve every few days, when he got the chance – they kept him busy with shrinks and PTs (and Tony had access to all their notes, which was probably highly illegal, but it was for _science_ ), and gave him briefings on the modern world which would all prove invaluable when he was eventually cleared to leave the base, but he had to understand that right now it was a serious security issue, blah blah blah. Steve not only bought it but seemed pretty docile about the whole thing, as far as Tony could tell. They had let him talk to Peggy, in the end, and he didn’t seem too heartbroken about the situation (although as far as Tony was aware nobody had told him about her late wife). Tony brought in the wooden Go set that Bruce had bought him for his birthday and taught Steve to play, since he didn’t have anyone else to play with right now, and Steve took to it immediately, saying something about how he liked it so much better than chess because chess was all war metaphors, which kind of surprised Tony but he was glad Steve liked it. It gave him a chance to observe Steve. It was better than just trying to have a conversation with him, because Steve had all kinds of questions for Tony, and it would be so easy to give away too much information. Tony could slip on a mask all right, but it wasn’t a blank mask like the one Natasha wore, it was gaudy and loud, and it just wasn’t going to fly in the privacy of Steve’s quarters, and if he wasn’t careful, Tony was going to end up giving far too much of himself away.

#

Tony wasn’t sure about the wisdom of bringing in Sharon, when Fury first suggested it – he’d completely forgotten to mention her in his first meeting with Steve, too busy kicking himself for letting the Peggy stuff slip. It seemed like it was something that could get complicated fast. On the other hand, he couldn’t be here all the time (whether Fury would bar him or Steve would get tired of him first, it was difficult to call, but one or the other would happen before long), and he didn’t want the LMD to be compromised by being too isolated, so he okayed it.

“I hear you met Agent Carter,” he said the next time he was there. “How did that go?”

“Um, fine. She was very nice. She seemed a little like she didn’t know how to react to me, though. I guess it is odd.”

 _You have no idea_ , thought Tony. Must have been especially weird for Sharon, meeting Steve, having to do the whole getting-to-know-you thing, acting like she’d never seen him before, when she was already screwing the Mark I version. And him not recognizing her. It hadn’t been a problem for Tony – it wasn’t like his relationship with Cap was anything he had warm gooey feelings about. He should have thought harder about what it would be like for Sharon, though. They weren’t friends or anything but he liked her fine. He decided to send her an apology bouquet or something.

“Nobody’s really made an effort to be friends with me the way you have,” Steve continued. “You’ve been so nice to me.” If he’d been actively trying to paralyze Tony with guilt he couldn’t have done a better job. Tony opened his mouth to say something dismissive, or change the subject, but Steve looked troubled by something.  “Tony,” he said quietly, “is this room bugged?”

Tony hesitated. “Yes,” he answered, “but nobody’s listening live, and they wouldn’t review the audio without a reason.”

 “Tony, listen to me, I trust you – no, don’t look at me like that. I know there are things you aren’t telling me, but I also know you’re not so happy about that, and I don’t think you’ll lie to me if I ask you a direct question. Am I wrong? Maybe you won’t be able to answer, but you won’t lie.”

Tony nodded slowly.

“I’m sick, Tony,” said Steve quietly. “I need to know if there’s a cure.”

Tony stared at him. “There’s nothing in your file,” he said.

“Nobody knows about it,” Steve whispered. Shit. Of course, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with him anyway, but the real Captain was a different story, and if there was something he was holding back Tony needed to know. SHIELD needed to know, much as that rubbed him the wrong way. Yet another thing to jeopardize their fragile team; with Bruce gone and Thor off-world and Tony’s trust issues with Natasha and civility issues with Cap, that was all they needed.

“Are you – are you sure the serum didn’t take care of it? It should have got rid of anything that was wrong with you.”

Steve snorted through his nose, but it was humorless. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. It’s – it’s up here,” he said, tapping his temple. He took a deep breath. “I’m a –” he was struggling to get the words out. Tony sat next to him on the bed.

“Hey,” he said soothingly. “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it, okay? I promise, I’ll fix it,” and he laid a hand on Steve’s arm, but he flinched away, and that was… painfully familiar. He thought he’d done it right this time, but he’d obviously just delayed the inevitable. But Steve didn’t look angry, he looked pained, and that made him try again. “Think of me like a priest,” he said, and Steve actually laughed. It wasn’t the happiest of laughs, but it was a start.

“I’m a sexual deviant, Tony,” said Steve, all in a rush, and Tony stilled. There were a few things Steve could mean, but there was one really obvious possibility staring him in the face, and he decided it was worth risking being wrong and making things worse if it saved Steve from having to say it out loud.

“I’m just going out on a limb here, and please don’t be angry, but do you mean that you’re attracted to men?”

Steve nodded, his face shuttered.

“Oh my god, Steve,” Tony said, bringing a hand up to his forehead, “that’s not illegal anymore, okay? It hasn’t been considered an illness since some time in the seventies, I think; I’ll check that out for you. There’s nothing wrong with you. Jesus, they don’t tell you anything around here, do they?”

“Not really,” said Steve, sounding dazed.

“God dammit. They treat you like a – I’ll take care of it,” he said, leaping to his feet.

“Don’t – don’t go,” said Steve. He looked like he was still reeling a little.

“No, of course, I was just going to yell at Fury. I can do it later. Hey.” He sat down again and put his arms around Steve, and didn’t mention the tears he felt soaking through the material of his shirt. “Didn’t I say it would be okay?”

“You said you’d fix it,” said Steve, his voice muffled.

“Nothing to fix, right? I wouldn’t lie to you, remember?”

Steve pulled away to take a deep, gulping breath and nodded. His eyes were red and streaming (and Tony would love to meet whoever did the wetware), but he looked like he was calming down. Tony didn’t let go of him anyway.

#

Tony told himself he would never, ever act on it. Apart from anything else it was a Greek tragedy waiting to happen. And yeah, maybe he couldn’t get rid of a tingling sense of anticipation, of _inevitability_ , but that was just his dumbass lizard brain wanting things it couldn’t have, and it was about time he showed that guy who was boss.

#

“And look, if you open up this program you can use it to sketch,” he said, handing Steve the stylus.

“Right on the screen?” said Steve dubiously.

“Right on the screen.”

He’d talked Fury into letting Steve have a tablet partly by threatening to throw a hissy fit and partly through judicious application of wheedling. “Come on,” he’d said, “you don’t trust safeguards put in place by the great Tony Stark? There’s no way he can find out anything about Cap or The Avengers or the Chitauri battle or any of that shit, okay, it just means he can look up Shrinky Dinks or whatever. Unless you want to give him the birds and bees talk yourself.”

So Fury had eventually come around, and Tony had just spent the last half hour showing Steve how to Google (okay, no, not just Googling, he’d given him the grand tour). Steve had reacted with a mixture of childlike delight and suspicion, as though he was still expecting it to be an elaborate prank, but he took to it better than… well, better than Cap had, apart from anything else. But then Cap had been introduced to modern computing by SHIELD goons, and Tony had never bothered to fix that, he realized with a stab of… something.

Steve was now poking at the screen with the stylus.

“It should register changes in pressure,” said Tony.

“Oh yeah,” said Steve unenthusiastically, “neat.”

“You don’t like it.”

“Sorry. I’m sure I just need to get used to it!” said Steve. “But, uh. Can you still get paper?”

Tony buried his face in his hands. “Can you still get paper?” He shook with laughter. “Oh my god. Precious.” Steve shoved him off the bed.

#

The next week he was absolutely snowed under and couldn’t get to SHIELD HQ, so he had several premium-quality sketchbooks and pencils delivered to Steve’s quarters (or “cell”, as he had privately begun to think of it), which he was sure would more than make up for his absence. In the meantime, he took the opportunity to observe Cap.

It was both easier and harder than he might have imagined, compartmentalizing the two. Cap had a different physical presence somehow – or, at least, he never let his guard down around Tony. It wasn’t like they were at each other’s throats anymore – really, they were fine – but there was certainly an edge to their interactions, not like the easy camaraderie that had developed between himself and Steve, even without the bonding experience of fighting alongside one another. Put them in a room together and he’d be able to tell them apart instantly, but still, sometimes he wasn’t thinking and he’d look at Cap and see Steve and he’d smile at him, genuinely, for a second, and Cap would just – stare back inscrutably, and Tony would feel like an _idiot_.

Mostly what he noticed, though, was how pissed off Cap seemed at the world, most of the time. Sure, there were moments where he’d catch glimpses of Steve’s sense of humor, or his sheepish self-deprecating smile , but they were few and far between. Mostly he seemed to spend his time glaring at things. Not people – he was almost unfailingly polite – but surfaces, objects, thin air.

Tony could only think of one person to ask about it.

He approached Natasha. She held her hands loosely behind her back. He was still jumpy around her after the whole _syringe incident_ , even now, and he appreciated her attempts to demonstrate she meant him no harm, but it was kind of sad that it was necessary. She seemed to think so too – she’d made some overtures of friendship towards him, in a distinctly Natasha kind of way, but he couldn’t quite make himself respond to them properly. She’d stopped pretending to flirt with him, though, so at least he knew where he stood.

“Why do you think he’s so angry all the time?” he said abruptly.

Natasha blinked at him. “Who, Bruce?”

“What? No, Bruce is a pussycat,” he said, ignoring both her raised eyebrow and the way he suddenly missed Bruce so much his throat went tight. “Rogers,” he clarified.

“PTSD,” she said, like she was surprised she even had to say it, and fair enough, but--

“I wasn’t like that.”

“Well, it can manifest in a lot of different ways.”

“The LMD isn’t like that either. And they should be psychologically _identical_. There are obvious differences in the physiology, although his body is mostly organic, but I’m just concerned he didn’t copy right.”

“Isn’t it largely academic? I mean, it’s not supposed to fool people who know Rogers well.”

“Yeah, I know, the AI is way more sophisticated than it has to be. Fury’s already chewed my ear off about that. He’s a prototype, if I make more the AI will be more Dummy than JARVIS, but I still need to know if there’s something wrong with the technology. I know you get it, Romanoff, you’re more of a perfectionist than I am.”

She sighed in concession. “It’s not like each person has a pre-ordained way they’ll handle it, it’s as much a roll of the dice as anything else. Plus his experiences since waking up have been completely different. I don’t know, Tony, it’s not as though I’m a licensed psychologist or anything, but I’m sure it copied fine.”

“Okay,” said Tony thoughtfully, “thanks.”

#

He finally managed to make time to pay a visit to Steve, and was greeted by the sight of him sprawled on his cot with the sketchpad on his lap.

“Oh good, you got the art stuff,” he said, and Steve looked up at him delightedly, snapping the book closed.

“I knew it was from you!”

“Who else would it be from?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t leave a note,” said Steve, moving to sit up. “Did you pick it out yourself?”

“Uh, yeah, online. It’s not a big deal or anything. Sorry I couldn’t make it over this week, how have been doing? Draw anything good?”

“Just doodling,” said Steve quickly, keeping the sketchbook in his peripheral vision, like he was worried Tony might make a grab for it.

“Fine,” said Tony teasingly, “be that way. How you getting on with the tablet?”

Steve grinned at him, a grin he hadn’t seen before, a _dangerous_ grin. “I did find something interesting, actually,” he said with false innocence, and beckoned Tony over. He clicked the tablet on and opened up a window confidently – more confidently than Clint wielded a touchscreen, for one. Tony felt a weird little stab of pride, which was ridiculous and he had to shut it down. Then he got a good look at what Steve was talking about, and, well, crap.

“You must have been popular with the girls,” said Steve, a little shyly.

Tony figured he might be thinking about his own lovelorn adolescence, when he was not only tiny but also, as it turned out, secretly gay, and comparing it with what he imagined Tony must have had, judging by the picture on the screen of sixteen-year-old Tony, all cleaned up, flirting shamelessly with the camera. But it wasn’t like that.

“Not… not so much,” he said, which, it wasn’t a secret or anything, but his awkward phase wasn’t something he tended to be forthcoming about, but Steve was Steve. “I had a make-up artist prep me for this shoot, and a stylist, and I was professionally lit and I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and they shot me from a bunch of angles and picked the most flattering ones. I was a gangly little insomniac four-eyes, Steve, and I was a total geek. A, uh-”

“I know what a geek is,” said Steve, rolling his eyes. “And before you start, I _know_ it isn’t someone who bites the heads off of chickens. You gave me the internet. Geeks are in, right?”

“Yeah, well, they weren’t back then, trust me.”

“I didn’t even know you wore glasses,” said Steve with interest. He looked like he might be trying to picture it.

“I don’t. I wore contacts for a while when my – you know, when I first inherited the company. Then I got LASIK. It’s, you know, I had a – I became the face of the company when I was seventeen. I didn’t have any real power yet or anything, but I was kind of thrust into the limelight. I mean I was in the public eye to some extent as a kid, but nothing like that. I wanted to reinvent myself. I was a teenage boy, you know, and I hadn’t exactly been a big hit at college, people were either jealous because I skipped ahead or just saw me as a kid. Which, I mean, I was. I did plenty of drinking in college, plenty of embarrassing myself, but I wasn’t, like, a cool guy. The way I look in that photo was a total anomaly. And then suddenly I’m richer than god and have no parental supervision and there are stylists and make-up artists to make me look like that pretty much all the time, and everybody suddenly realises how cool I am and how much they want to party with me, and I take a bunch of coke and do a lot more drinking and screwing around, and one day I wake up and I’m thirty-five and I realise that it stopped making me even partway happy longer ago than I can remember but I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“I’m sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean to upset you,” said Steve, hesitantly laying a hand on Tony’s arm. Tony patted it reassuringly.

“ _You_ didn’t upset me. I upset me. I am a big ol’ mess, Steve, I’m sure we’ve been through this already. Jesus, sorry. It is a cute picture though.”

#

After that little unexpected outpouring of neuroses, he wasn’t really expecting Steve to ask for his company again for a while, and he didn’t blame him. He decided to give himself a little time to try and pick up the scattered pieces of his dignity before he went crawling back and… well, no, he wasn’t going to apologize, he was going to pretend it never happened, like a _man_. Not that it should even matter what a prototype LMD thought of him, for fuck’s sake. So it came as kind of a shock when, nine days later, at about 4 am (and for once he had actually been asleep), he got a call telling him that “his android” had been put on suicide watch. He was about to say that he wasn’t an android and he wasn’t Tony’s, but then the words actually sunk in, and all he could say was “what the fuck? JARVIS, prep my suit.”

Apparently, Steve had wrapped his hand in a towel, smashed the mirror in his room and then used one of the jagged shards to break the skin on the back of his hand in a sharp line. It obviously hadn’t been a suicide attempt, so what was it? Self-harm? That didn’t ring true to Tony at all, from what he knew of Steve, but he couldn’t think of any other explanation.

He must have looked genuinely intimidating, for once, because junior agents all but scattered in his wake as he stalked down the corridor, a level of respect he wasn’t accustomed to. He hadn’t bothered to remove the suit, but one of the geneticists, a willowy, Celtic-looking woman whose name he could never remember, managed to convince him to take it off before he saw Steve, since he didn’t know about Iron Man, and not only would it bring up awkward questions, it might distress him further. Tony agreed to that much. But the way he slammed the door to Steve’s quarters open and barked “what the FUCK were you thinking?” probably wasn’t in the spirit of the thing.

“Tony,” said Steve, sounding relieved and looking kind of bemused. “I wasn’t trying to _kill_ myself.”

“No, I figured out that much. So what _were_ you trying to do?”

Steve sighed. “I noticed that I was feeling weaker. I asked the doctors about it, but they were no help. I think they’re keeping something from me,” he added in an undertone. “I was just trying to see how quickly I would heal.”

“So you decided to _injure yourself_?” hissed Tony. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

“You haven’t been here for over a week!” said Steve, sounding defensive and a little hurt. “Anyway, I figured you had enough on your mind right now.”

“Jesus Christ. There is nothing _on my mind_ that is more important than… fuck, Steve. I didn’t mean to say all that stuff. I was embarrassed after. If I had any idea it would mean you’d think you were burdening me with stuff, I never would have--”

“No, stop right there,” said Steve. “Do _not_ apologise for opening up to me. I’m sorry about this,” he said, gesturing to his hand, “but it’s just a scratch. Although it doesn’t seem to be healing very fast.”

Tony winced and said nothing.

“Do you think being in the ice could have had an effect on the serum?”

“It’s possible,” said Tony, which was _not_ a lie. It could have done. Wouldn’t make any difference to Steve, since he didn’t have any serum in his system and hadn’t been anywhere near any ice, but that didn’t make it a lie. “Just, don’t do any more experiments on yourself, okay? Leave it to me, I’ll take care of it.”

That was when his plan of action changed.

#

The next day, Tony came to Steve’s quarters armed with a Battlestar Galactica boxset. One of the geneticists – he should probably learn their names at some point – high-fived him, and another gave him kind of a sideways look, but hey, why would Tony Stark jeopardize his own experiment? It was clearly just Tony Stark being eccentric as usual, and his ‘never apologize, never explain’ reputation was finally doing him a favor.

He presented it to Steve, who looked between him and the box blankly. “Is this supposed to stop me cutting myself with pieces of glass?”

“No, _I_ am going to stop you cutting yourself with pieces of glass, forcibly if necessary, with my fists. You laugh, but I have technology, okay , I will _end_ you if you ever pull that shit again. No, _this_ is something for us to watch together. I’m getting tired of Go.” Steve’s face fell. “No, don’t give me the face, we can still play Go, let’s just mix it up a little, yeah?”

“Okay,” said Steve, sounding pleased and shy again, like he got sometimes, at weird moments.

They watched the miniseries that afternoon, and Steve was totally transfixed.

“What if I want to watch it and you’re not here?”

“You can watch it without me if you like, I’ve seen them all already.”

“I thought it was for us to watch together?”

“I’m just saying, don’t feel like you have to wait for me to visit.”

“You could always visit more often.”

“Uh, well. I mean I have some free time right now” – _where my love life used to be_ – “but are you sure you won’t get sick of me if I’m around all the time?”

Steve just smiled at him and asked if they could watch another episode.

#

Sometime between ‘The Farm’ and ‘Home’, Tony told Steve the story behind the arc reactor.

#

He cracked his eyes open to find Steve looking down at him with a soft expression on his face.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “I fall asleep?”

“Yeah. You been working too hard?”

“You know me.”

“Mm.” Steve leaned down a little, and then paused, a question in his eyes. He glanced at Tony’s mouth, so Tony pushed himself up to meet him in the middle. When their lips met, Steve made the happiest little noise into his mouth, then braced his hands on Tony’s biceps and rolled them over so Tony was on top. When Tony pulled away for air, Steve was beaming.

“I wasn’t sure, I wasn’t sure,” he said, “but I, I just wanted to so badly, and I didn’t think you’d be angry, and –”

“Shut up, Steve.”

“I’m so sweet on you, Tony. You’re… you’re…”

“Quiet,” said Tony, grinning, and ran the backs of his knuckles across the line of stomach exposed by Steve’s rucked-up shirt to make him squirm, and then Steve shoved his hands under Tony’s shirt until they were brushing the arc reactor.

“Can I – can I see it?”

Tony swallowed. “Sure,” he said, and Steve pushed his t-shirt up immediately and stared.

“Oh, wow,” he said. “And nobody else has one of these, in the whole world, right?”

“I sincerely hope not,” said Tony. Steve’s eyes were darting between the reactor and Tony’s face, and they were full of wonder and pride, and Tony wasn’t at all sure he could handle it, so he just leaned down to kiss him again, and Steve’s hands moved to his back and roamed up and down, while Tony grabbed handfuls of Steve’s chest and made him gasp. When he slid his hands lower, though, Steve stopped him.

“Cameras,” he said, jerking his head towards a corner of the room. “We can’t do this in here.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned that earlier?” Tony said without venom.

“Well gee, you modern girls just move so fast,” said Steve, grinning at him and capturing another kiss.

#

So maybe Tony had changed his mind.

#

They were watching 'Downloaded', curled up together on the bed, and Steve was running his fingertips lightly up and down Tony’s bicep.

“Stop it,” said Tony. “This is my favorite episode, and you’re driving me crazy.”

“You think you don’t drive me crazy?” said Steve lightly, not looking away from the screen. “You think I don’t think about you? I think about you,” he continued in a whisper, “in the shower, and I think about you when I’m trying to sleep at night. I think about how it would feel to have you surrounding me, how you’d be so hot, and what sounds you’d make and whether you’d call my name.”

“Jesus, Steve, what are you trying to do to me?”

Steve buried his face in Tony’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he said. “I just, I want you so bad. Christ.” He nosed at the neck of Tony’s shirt and started sucking at his collar bone.

“You have to stop,” said Tony firmly. “This isn’t fair. This is your rule. I mean, I agree with you, but if we do anything I know you’ll regret it, you might even resent me, so I _have_ to keep my damn hands off you, and you’re, you’re killing me here.”

Steve groaned and moved away. “You’re right,” he said, “I know you’re right. I’m sorry.”

“This is about more than sex, right?”

“Of course it is!” said Steve, eyes wide and affronted.

“All right, _so_ , shouldn’t we be able to just enjoy each other’s company like we used to, without it turning into anything?”

“I always enjoy your company,” said Steve, pressing sweet kisses to his cheek, “but you’re, you know, handsome and strong and pressed up against me. I can’t help it.”

“You want me to move over there?” challenged Tony, eyebrow raised. Steve immediately put both arms around him, tight.

“No,” he said, “I’ll be good.”

“Okay,” said Tony. “Now rewind that. I told you, this is my favorite episode.”

#                                          

Fury stopped him on his way down the hall.

“What this I hear about you showing him some sci fi show?”

“I’m sure his eyes won’t go square, if that’s what you’re worried about. I read a study where they proved that doesn’t actually happen. Trust a man of science.”

“Agent Hill was kind enough to fill me in on the premise,” continued Fury coolly. “What in the name of god are you trying to do, Stark?”

Tony kept his chin up. “I’m not trying to do anything. It’s a TV show.” Fury wasn’t buying it. “Well what are you gonna do, revoke his BSG privileges? That’ll just make him suspicious. Plus we’re right in the middle of a two-parter, and I won’t be held responsible for his behavior if he doesn’t get to watch the second half.”

“Watch yourself, Stark. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. I asked you to build me a goddamn LMD, not some kind of sexbot.”

Tony felt his fist clench automatically. “I suggest you watch your mouth, sir,” he ground out with icy calm.

“No, Stark! I suggest _you_ remember that your little boyfriend has an off switch, and my finger’s on the button!”

“Message received,” said Tony quietly, feeling the tingle of dread creep up his spine. Fury had finally succeeded in frightening him. He walked away.

#

It took him a while, and half a bottle of scotch, to recover from that conversation, and it made him anxious to see Steve again as soon as he could, so after he’d dispensed with meetings the next day he went straight to HQ. It was Steve’s usual gym time, which he tried not to interrupt, but he hoped he wouldn’t mind.

Steve was beating the ever-living shit out of a punching bag. That was one thing he had in common with Cap. He looked reassuringly whole, and Tony let out some of his tension with a sigh.

“What’d it do,” he said, “insult your mother?”

Steve turned around and grinned at him ( _not_ so like Cap. Cap glared if anyone interrupted him).

“Said you were short.”

Tony spluttered. “I am not…” Steve advanced on him, stood directly in front of him as he unbound his hands. “I am not short.”

“Oh no?” said Steve, taking another half-step towards him until their chests brushed.

“Okay, okay,” laughed Tony, “maybe I am shor-- holy crap what are you doing?” as Steve swept him up, dangling his feet off the ground. He clasped his arms around Steve’s neck without thinking about it, and Steve kissed him like he was some kind of damsel. But whatever, he was okay with it, it was cute.

He was set down on his feet again. “It’s so good to see you,” said Steve, “I wasn’t expecting you until later.” He smoothed down Tony’s lapels. “My word, what are you wearing?”

It was a gray pinstripe suit, maroon shirt, no tie – nothing out of the ordinary for him, but then Steve had only ever seen him in casual clothes. “I came from the office. You don’t like?”

“I do like, a little too much. You shouldn’t wear things like this around me, it’s dangerous. I might have to take them off you.”

“Steve, stop it, be good.”

“No,” said Steve, walking him backward towards the changing rooms. “I’m done with being good,” and pushed him through the doors. “No cameras in here,” he whispered, grinning deviously. Tony noticed his Brooklyn accent was peeking out around the edges of his speech. It was endearing, and kind of weirdly hot.

“Oh, Jesus, Steve, why didn’t you say something before?”

“Only just thought of it.”

“Call yourself a tactical genius?”

“Shut up, Tony. Anyway, woulda felt kind of seedy dragging you down here for sex, but, since we’re here…”

“Yeah, okay, no complaints here. You got a, uh, a rubber?”

Steve drew back. “We need one?”

Tony hesitated. Even if Steve _could_ catch anything, he hadn’t exactly had a chance to. And Tony was almost certain that he himself was clean, but he kind of had a policy…

“This time,” he said apologetically. “It’s just, it’s a thing.”

“S’fine,” said Steve, and slammed his fist into the condom machine. Tony laughed.

“You gonna pay for that?”

“To hell with them, they can take it outta my back pay. Take your damn pants off.”

“We need something for lube,” said Tony breathlessly, and Steve ducked into a shower stall and came out triumphantly brandishing a bottle of conditioner. Tony had toed off his shoes and socks and kicked them a few feet away, and now he shoved his pants down and stepped out of them.

“Let me prep myself, okay? It’ll be quicker,” he said, and Steve nodded distractedly, staring at the hem of his shirt. “Oh, yeah, I went commando.”

“Is that what they call it?”

Tony hurriedly worked two fingers inside himself, and Steve bit his lip against a moan.

“Okay, baby, c’mere, I’m ready,” said Tony at last, and Steve crowded him up against the wall, shoving the condom packet between his teeth to run his hands up and down Tony’s thighs. Tony fumbled with Steve’s fly and shoved his pants and briefs down just enough to free his cock, then grabbed the condom, tore it open and smoothed it onto Steve, who was mouthing at Tony’s neck and puffing heavy breaths into his hair. Steve hitched him up and held him off the ground, then looked at him for permission.

“It’s fine,” said Tony, “just take it slow, okay? Don’t move straight away.” Steve nodded and pushed in, then caught his breath.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, a little crease at his brow of mingled concern and effort.

“Yeah, a little, but it’s fine, it’s normal, just give it a minute. You good?”

“Um, yeah,” he said with a breathless laugh. “Don’t ask stupid questions. God, Tony.” He kissed him sloppily.

“Okay, okay, move, just a little, it’s okay, I can take it.”

Steve started rocking into him gently, all the while kissing him adoringly on the jaw and the temple. He brought one hand up to undo the top two buttons of Tony’s shirt, so that the light spilled out and lit up his neck and chin. “Is it okay? Is it starting to feel good yet?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s good.”

Tony bore down a little, and Steve gritted his teeth and began to increase his pace. “Tell me what it feels like.”

“It, uh… it’s not like it doesn’t feel good by itself, but mostly it kind of intensifies everything else, you know? And it’s a stretch, like a good stretch, and it… it feels full, there’s resistance, you know? So when I…” he clenched down, a little, and Steve cried out.

“Tony, god, don’t do that, it’s going to be too soon. You probably shouldn’t talk.”

“It’s okay, Jesus, I want to make you come. I want you to come inside me.”

Steve tangled his fingers into Tony’s hair and thrust into him so hard he was pinned to the wall, but he didn’t keep up the pace; instead, he made little circular movements and pressed his face into Tony’s neck.

“Oh, Tony,” he said, “oh, god,” and came.

He set Tony down lightly on his feet and leaned against the wall as he slipped out of him. Once he’d caught his breath, he tied off the condom and fell to his knees in front of Tony, immediately taking him in his mouth.

“Jesus Christ,” said Tony. “You don’t – you don’t have to… oh fuck.”

Steve brought a finger to trace at Tony’s entrance, and looked up at him questioningly.

“God, yes, do it… oh my Christ you have thick fingers.”

Steve’s free hand was roaming everywhere it could reach, and he kept his eyes fixed on Tony’s face. When Tony knew he was close to the edge, he tried to push him away, but Steve made a low noise in his throat and refused to budge, and Tony had a moment of terrible clarity as he finally admitted to himself that he was in love.

#

“You seemed so sad when I first met you,” Steve whispered into the back of his neck.

“Mm,” said Tony sleepily, “I’m not sad now.”

“But you were?”

Tony rolled onto his back to look at Steve, who backtracked, “you don’t have to talk about it, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s… it’s okay.” He had to keep so many secrets from Steve, it might be nice, to give him something of himself. He’d made himself vulnerable once before and as much as it had freaked him out at the time, he felt okay about it now, even good. “See, I… I’ve never been very good at making friends,” he started.

“I can’t believe  that,” murmured Steve.

“That’s sweet and all, but do you want to hear this story or don’t you?”

Steve rolled his eyes and stayed silent.

“So I just had these two best friends, for years. The two people I could really rely on. Well, there was someone else, I thought, but I was wrong about him, he... wasn’t a good guy. So one of these friends, we had kind of a falling out, and we made up but it’s still a little weird, and he’s overseas anyway. And the other one, she decided she wanted us to try dating, and I… I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it obviously wasn’t, but then I wouldn’t let go of the idea for way too long and she had to break up with me and it was kind of brutal, so… so now it’s weird between us, as well. I mean, we’re still friends. Or, we’re working on it. But that’s them. And I made this new friend, and I thought he was amazing – I mean, he _was_ amazing, he is amazing, but he left. So.”

“Where did he go?” said Steve softly.

“India. Loose ends. He’s coming back, but I don’t know when. I was still with – my girlfriend, when he left. He didn’t know I would be all alone. It’s just. It sucked.”

“Did you, um, love him?” said Steve, with a forced steadiness to his voice.

Tony smiled at him. “I think the potential was there,” he said honestly, “but it never got to that point. And now…”

“Now you’re not all alone anymore.”

“That’s right.”

Steve lay his head on Tony’s chest and sighed. “What about your girl? You love her?”

“Yeah,” he responded slowly, “but not the right way. She’s… I don’t know what I’d do without her, honestly. But the passion wasn’t there. What about _your_ girl?”

“Huh? Peggy?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, well. She was really special. I guess I thought, if I could settle down with anybody – any woman, I mean.  I’m damn glad she was on my side, that’s for sure. But maybe it’s good we never had the chance. We both deserved better. And… no, no, I didn’t _love_ her. Not like… you know.”

“Yeah,” Tony whispered, breath catching. Steve leaned up and rubbed his cheek against Tony’s, making a small, satisfied noise at the rasp of stubble.

“Tony, do you…” he paused. “Do you promise we’ll be together, after they let me out?”

Tony went still. “I can’t promise that,” he said unevenly. “You know that – I said I wouldn’t lie to you, and. If I make a promise I don’t know if I can keep…” he could feel himself starting to shake, because Jesus, he wanted to so much. He wanted to tell Steve the truth, he wanted to be with him, properly, have a real life with him, and he didn’t know _how_.

“Okay,” said Steve soothingly, sensing his tension, “but you do _want_ to?”

“God, yes,” said Tony immediately, and Steve smiled at him.

#

Hill grabbed his arm on his way down to Steve’s quarters the next day.

“What do you want?” said Tony coldly.

“I’m sorry I had to tell Fury. It’s my _job_ ,” said Hill, not sounding apologetic at all, but Tony had to admit she wasn’t wrong. And while he was admitting things, he should probably admit that this must look pretty bad from the outside. It didn’t feel that great from the inside, except for the part where it did. Mostly it felt heart-wrenching and necessary. “I wanted to warn you,” she continued, “people are starting to talk.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “This is news? Fury already knows, what more harm could it do?”

“I’m not condoning your behavior,” Maria said carefully, ignoring most of what he’d said, “but if I were in your position, I would be thinking very carefully about my next move.”

#

Steve was curled around him and Tony was sucking on the pulse point at his wrist, the way he liked, when the door to his quarters burst open to reveal Rogers, flanked by two security guards. Tony scrambled off the bed, and Steve jumped in front of him, eyeing the guards’ guns warily.

“Tony, what--”

“Get _behind_ me, Steve, right now,” said Tony. Steve ignored him. “Do it!” barked Tony. “I promise they won’t shoot me. I _promise_.” What they were willing to do to Steve, he didn’t know, and didn’t care to find out. Steve was still reluctant, but when Tony stepped around him he stayed put.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” said Rogers, “but I had to see for myself. What the hell have you been _doing_ down here?”

“You knew about the LMD project,” said Tony, his voice gravelly, hyper-aware of Steve behind him.

“That’s not what I’m _talking_ about, Stark! You had no right to… to… use my likeness like that. What have you been doing with it? Did you program it that way?”

“What is he talking about? What _is_ he?” hissed Steve, behind him.

“Steve, it’s gonna be okay, I promise. Rogers, I don’t know who you’re trying to fool, yourself or everyone else, but--”

Rogers advanced on him threateningly, and Steve shoved him aside. “Who. The fuck. Are you?” he said. “You know what? I don’t care. If you lay a _finger_ on him…”

“Steve,” said Tony, “get the fuck behind me, he has the serum, get behind me _now_.” Rogers stopped in his tracks, and Steve wheeled around to stare at him. It was about to get ugly, one way or the other, he could just feel it. For once, it was Fury who stopped things going that way. He swept in regally and the room stilled.

“Captain Rogers,” he said, “I apologize for this, but I think it would be best if you were to leave. I’ll deal with this situation.

Rogers looked murderous, but at last he said “yes, sir,” and left the room.

“Stand down,” said Fury to the guards, “but stick around. Stark, I hope you realize that this unfortunate occurrence renders your prototype unusable.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” said Tony, and it came out as a scratchy whisper, because he knew exactly what Fury meant and his entire body had gone cold and he was frozen to the spot.

“It is no longer an asset. It simply doesn’t justify the resources we’ve put into this project, and which we continue to put into it. We’re going to be trying a new approach, and I think you’ve become compromised. We won’t be asking you to continue working on this project.”

“I don’t _care_ ,” said Tony. “What are you going to do with _my prototype_?”

“Stark. I’m sure you can understand that, for security reasons, it would be best for everyone if the prototype were destroyed.”

“You _cannot_ do that,” said Tony, terrified and livid, shaking with it, determined to do anything, _anything_ to stop this, willing it to be a nightmare. “This is a human rights issue, this is murder, it’s--”

“No,” said Fury, “it isn’t.”

 “Then – then you admit the prototype is a commodity. Then don’t I have some rightful claim to it? I’ll buy it from you. Anything.”

“SHIELD doesn’t need your money.”

Tony’s mind raced. He would resort to violence if necessary – they’d kill Steve over his dead body, quite literally – but there had to be something he could offer that Fury would want. Then it came to him, so clear, so obvious.

It was the worst, most selfish thing he would ever do. He was selling his soul. He was trading in his one chance at redemption. He didn’t hesitate.

“The suit,” he said. “I’ll sign over exclusive rights to all the technology. You can have the suit. Just let me have him. Please. Nobody has to know. I’ll change his name, I’ll take him far away from here, nobody will make the connection. Please.”

Fury smiled with his teeth. “Deal.”

#

It was a long night of lawyers and paperwork and heartache. Steve sat silently in the interrogation room they were holding him in “for safe keeping”. At first Tony had refused to let him out of his sight, but at last he’d agreed to it as long as a monitor streaming live security cam footage was visible to him at all times. He kept one eye on it as he signed himself away, and watched as Hill spoke gently to Steve. It was well below her pay grade, but she seemed to have taken an interest in him, and Tony was guiltily grateful he wasn’t the one who had to get him up to speed. It was painful enough to watch their conversation, even without sound. Steve looked terrified at first, but gradually seemed to go numb, as though the blows weren’t registering anymore.

He had to steel himself to go down there. What if Steve didn’t want anything to do with him? Tony wouldn’t regret his choice, he couldn’t, but it would be almost unbearable to lose him now. Without Iron Man, and without Steve, without Pepper, without Bruce, without Rhodey – he’d be adrift. As good as dead.

He took a deep breath outside the room and tapped at the door. Maria let herself out. He tried to read her expression, but it was as closed off as ever, so he braced himself and went in.

When Steve finally spoke to him, his voice was level – dangerously so.

“So you own me. What does that mean?”

“That means jack shit, I swear to god, it’s just to appease Fury. Of course I don’t own you, Steve.”

“And what now?”

“I’m going to get you a new identity and you can start over. Whatever you want, wherever you want, I swear to god. I _promise_.”

“You promised you wouldn’t lie to me!”

“I didn’t, Steve, I didn’t. I… you know I couldn’t tell you, but I… I had a whole plan. I wanted you to realize for yourself, slowly, while I figured out how I was going to get you out of here.”

“Is that what Battlestar Galactica was about?” said Steve disbelievingly.

“That was phase one,” Tony admitted.

Steve put his head in his hands and barked out a humorless laugh. “And that’s supposed to reassure me, is it?”

 “Steve, this was never supposed to _happen_. We weren’t supposed to even like each other. Me and Rogers don’t. I was just the tech guy. And you weren’t supposed to be so _human_ and I was supposed to be able to pretend you weren’t and leave you to Fury and wash my hands of whatever came next.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah.”

**EPILOGUE**

“Sir,” said JARVIS, “Captain Rogers is at the door.”

“Ugh,” said Steve, at the same time as Tony said “let him in”.

“Hey, give the guy a break,” said Tony. “I probably could have been nicer to him.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Steve, and he wasn’t even being sarcastic, god love him.

“He did apologize.”

“Okay, but it doesn’t bother you that he’s lying to his girlfriend?”

“I don’t know, Steve, things are complicated, right? I mean, were you _lying_ to Peggy?”

Steve scowled. “That was different,” he muttered.

“Okay,” said Tony, folding himself up in Steve’s arms and breathing against his mouth. “Go easy on him anyway. He doesn’t have it as good as we do,” he said, pressing a brief kiss to Steve’s lips.

Steve smiled down at him. “That’s true. Listen, I’m gonna go get changed, I was thinking of going for a run. You go deal with him.”

“Sure,” Tony muttered to himself as he shuffled down the staircase, “abandon me to my fate.”

Rogers was standing by the doorway, staring at the portrait of Tony that hung there.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Tony civilly.

Rogers didn’t startle – had probably heard him coming – but just turned slowly and fluidly towards him. Tony had to hide a smile – it was such a contrast to Steve, who, without the serum, could sometimes display a lack of coordination that bordered on clumsiness.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” said Cap with a small, self-conscious smile. “I was just admiring this painting. I love the use of color. Is it Kahlo-inspired?”

“So I’m told,” said Tony, rolling his eyes. What had he done to deserve being constantly surrounded by people who knew more about art than he did? Oh. Right. All that bad stuff.

“I see, uh, Mr. Buchanan painted it,” Cap said, wincing only slightly at Steve’s choice of name, which had been yet another bone of contention between them when he’d announced it. He gestured to the signature in the corner.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “He’s not happy with it, but I insisted on putting it up. Anyway, Cap, what brings you to the Golden State?”

He ushered Rogers into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee.

“I wanted to talk to you, and I wanted to do it in person. I… I wanted to know if there’s any chance you’d consider rejoining the team.”

Tony squinted at him. “What for? You’ve read my file. Iron Man yes, Tony Stark not so much. Well, you got Iron Man.”

“That file was written for Fury’s benefit, Tony. _I’m_ not a SHIELD agent. I’m sure that as far as they’re concerned they’re better off without someone who asks questions and can find out the answers to them, but I don’t feel the same way.”

“You having some trust issues, Cap?”

“I… it’s not that I don’t trust my team,” he said, frustrated, “but Natasha and Clint are loyal to SHIELD, and Thor’s not exactly the suspicious type. And how long do you think Bruce will stick around, without you there?”

“About as long as it takes for me to send a jet to pick him up, if he doesn’t come here first.”

“Exactly.”

“Well I don’t know what to tell you, Cap. No way I’m working with Fury again. I don’t know if he played me or if he was really willing to—to—” his hands were gripping the counter a little too hard. He took a steadying breath and relaxed them. Rogers reached out a hand to squeeze his shoulder comfortingly, and at that moment he heard Steve thumping down the stairs. Cap removed his hand self-consciously, and took a deliberate step back as Steve entered the room in a tank top and running shorts.

“Captain Rogers,” said Steve with a slight grimace (boy, did it stick in his craw that he had no official military record anymore).

“Mr. Buchanan.”

“Please, call me Steve,” said Steve pleasantly, with just the barest hint of mischief in his eye. Tony tried to suppress an appreciative shudder at his boyfriend’s evil streak.

“Oh, I, uh. That might, um, get confusing,” said Cap, flustered.

“Of course. Well, whatever you feel comfortable with,” said Steve, sidling up behind Tony, and Tony suddenly realized that his insistence on getting changed hadn’t been about avoiding Rogers at all; it had been about putting on a flimsy outfit and staking his claim. “So, is this a social visit?”

“Cap was just trying to persuade me to go back over to the Dark Side.”

“Is Fury Darth Vader in this analogy? Because I like it.”

Cap looked totally confused, and Tony tried not to snicker. “Sorry, Cap. It’s like I was saying, I can’t work with Fury again. And Steve has commitments here.”

Rogers raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, art school. And my job.” Steve insisted on paying his own way, because he was a pain in the ass like that.

Rogers looked kind of wistful, but he was obviously starting to see that he was wasting his time. Tony offered to take him out to lunch, just to be polite – he’d come all this way, after all – but Cap wisely turned him down, and if the look on Steve’s face had something to do with it, well.

“Say hi to Sharon for me,” said Steve innocently, still clinging to Tony like a limpet, as Rogers made his exit.

“Uh, sure,” said Cap.

As soon as he judged that Cap was out of earshot, Tony turned around in Steve’s arms and burst out laughing. “Jesus, Steve, possessive much? You could have saved time and just got your dicks out on the table.”

“What would be the point? They’d be identical.” He obviously caught the speculative glint in Tony’s eye at that. “Oh, no. Don’t even think about it.”

“I’m thinking of a number between one and five…” said Tony teasingly.

“Yeah, it better be two, asshole.”

“Don’t worry, you’re way hotter than him. How is that possible, by the way?”

“Well, my hair is better. And you love me.”

“I hate your hair. You look like a Backstreet Boy.”

“Yeah, I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: probably don't use conditioner as lube?
> 
> Also, I mentioned in one or two of the comments that Zekkass wrote a great fic called ["we don't need a heart of gold, we need the heart of a lion"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/385246) \- it explores the demands put on Steve and the dichotomy between 'Captain America' and 'Steve Rogers' in a totally different but very interesting way, and you should read it if you haven't already!


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